rambam pediatric endocrinologist takes international prize

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Rambam Pediatric Endocrinologist Takes International Prize

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Prof Ze'ev Hochberg, director of Pediatric Endocrinology at Meyer Children’s Hospital at RHCC has been awarded the world's most prestigious prize in his field. Receiving the Andrea Prader Prize for his lifetime achievements in research and teaching, Prof Hochberg has been long active in promoting pediatric endocrinology in Africa. There, he has helped create a school for pediatricians in the field, and has taught and lectured widely

Rambam Pediatric Endocrinologist Prof. Ze'ev Hochberg (MD-Tel Aviv University, PhD-Technion, Haifa) has received the world's most prestigious award in his field, the Andrea Prader Prize. Created to honor lifetime achievement in teaching and research, the prize also recognizes outstanding leadership and contribution to pediatric endocrinology.

Prof Ze'ev Hochberg. Photo credit: Dudy Ardon-RHCC.

Director of Pediatric Endocrinology at Meyer Children’s Hospital at RHCC, Prof Hochberg primarily treats problems of too much or too little growth, the late or early onset of puberty and glandular diseases like thyroid and adrenal disorders. Long-involved in pediatric endocrinology education in developing countries, Prof Hochberg visits Africa several times a year. There – where practitioners of pediatric endocrinology have been virtually non-existent – he helps prepare specialists in the field.
Prof Hochberg heads the international organization Global Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes (GPED), which brings care to youngsters with endocrine diseases in the developing world. Through

GPED, Prof Hochberg helped found a school for pediatric endocrinology in Nairobi, Kenya. "Pediatricians who work in university hospitals come to us to learn the profession," explains Prof Hochberg, who was the school's first teacher in 2008. "The 18-month course is taught by resident tutors from Europe, the USA and Israel, who have inspired Australian and Japanese doctors to join the effort." Already, three classes have completed the training, yielding 23 pediatric endocrinologists for eastern Africa, where previously, there were none.

During 2003-4 Prof Hochberg served as President of the European Society for Paediatric
Endocrinology (ESPE), a group also active in the developing world. He has given courses in Nigeria and Kenya, and has lectured in Uganda and Ethiopia.

While pediatric endocrinologists confront the same disorders in Haifa and Africa, perspectives differ greatly. For example, recounts Prof Hochberg," a Kenyan colleague once told me he had never heard that shortness was considered a medical issue. When you are facing widespread malaria and HIV, short stature just doesn't seem problematic." In a more sobering case, Prof Hochberg tells of a father whose daughter had diabetes. As he earned $1 a day and must feed another four children and a wife, he could not pay for the needles required for insulin injections. He had to give up on his daughter. "This is the kind of thing we confront all the time," says Prof Hochberg.

In January 2011, under the direction of Prof Hochberg, GPED plans to open a new school for pediatric endocrinologists in Lagos, Nigeria. Graduates of the Nairobi school will become the faculty. In the future, Prof Hochberg would like to expand GPED activities to North Africa and the sub-Saharan region, where there are currently no pediatric endocrinologists.
"We cannot give the doctors there everything they require," says Prof Hochberg," but we can certainly help teach them the skills they need."

Active in research, Prof Hochberg has examined mechanisms of child growth, growth hormone and its receptor, bone and calcium metabolism and adipose tissue. Today he looks at growth through the glasses of evolution. "Why do we grow the way we do? Why are Pygmies small and Swedes tall?" asks Prof Hochberg, who addresses such questions from an evolutionary view in his 'in press' book, "Evo-Devo of Child Growth".